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Ocean acidification and atmospheric carbon
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[QUOTE="Baluncore, post: 6085673, member: 447632"] CO[SUB]2[/SUB] in the ocean is in equilibrium with CO[SUB]2[/SUB] in the atmosphere, but with a long time constant. The temperature of the ocean would have to rise very significantly before CO[SUB]2[/SUB] stopped moving from the atmosphere into the ocean. We can expect pH to continue to fall if atmospheric CO[SUB]2[/SUB] continues to rise at the present rate. There is a worrying pH interaction related to the iron cycle in the ocean. Phytoplankton require two doses of iron one week apart to mature. They then convert CO[SUB]2[/SUB] into O[SUB]2[/SUB] and organic carbon compounds. Later, they are eaten by krill that are in turn eaten by whales, that excrete the two doses of iron needed for the next generation of phytoplankton. If we break that iron cycle we greatly reduce the phytoplankton population replacement and the CO[SUB]2[/SUB] to O[SUB]2[/SUB] transformation. There is some good news and some bad news. First the good news is you don't need to worry about the solubility of CO[SUB]2[/SUB] in warmer seawater. But the bad news is that the pH limit on krill exoskeleton formation is rapidly approaching and will reach us long before temperature limits the solubility of CO[SUB]2[/SUB] in seawater. It seems we are going to have to trust in the rapid evolution of krill stocks that can build an exoskeleton in progressively more acidic seawater. This is a good argument for increasing the whale population, and for avoiding the harvest of krill, which is a significantly lower cost option than manufacturing and dumping bio-available iron in the Ocean. [/QUOTE]
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